So, what the heck is a salt scrub?

A salt scrub is a gentle, invigorating skin treatment that exfoliates as well as nourishes.

It’s super easy to make, and it leaves your skin soft and glowing.

When I say super easy, I really mean super easy.

It’s all of 3 ingredients: salt, a carrier oil, and a bit of essential oil.

Mix ‘em together and viola!

Salt scrubs are usually pricey items in department stores or salons, so you’ll be saving yourself a nice amount of money by making your own. Bonus!

And you’ll be avoiding all the weird chemical stabilizers, preservatives, synthetic fragrances, and dyes that are standard in most beauty products. Double bonus!

So your own scrub will not only be cheaper, but also more effective! You’re not layering on extra crap that your skin and body have to process (if they can) and detoxify. Dare I say triple bonus??

You’re giving your skin pure, raw ingredients that it can use to heal and flourish. Bo…no, just kidding.

Why is rubbing salt and oil on my skin so great?

Shall I count the ways for you?

I shall!

1) It feels amazing

If you’ve never done a salt scrub before, get ready to feel like royalty.

It’s super luxurious rubbing the scrub into your skin and inhaling whatever lovely essential oil you added to the mix.

Afterward your skin feels divinely soft, smooth, and hydrated.

This will fast become a weekly ritual that you look forward to.

2) It remineralizes your skin

High quality, unrefined salt is chock full of minerals. These little beauties heal and nourish the skin.

Usually whatever minerals your body receives comes through food. We have to break them all down, process them, then distribute them.

Unfortunately, most of us are very mineral deficient, meaning whatever we absorb through digestion is gobbled up quickly by our internal organs and rarely makes it all the way out to the skin.

This lack of minerals is compounded if we have a diet poor in minerals (aka lots of processed foods) or if we have compromised digestion, like heartburn, gallbladder dysfunction, food allergies, or irritable or inflammatory bowel disease.

3) It hydrates your skin

A salt scrub will reduce dry skin. A high quality oil not only adds moisture to the skin, it also locks it in.

The oil that is absorbed into your skin acts as a protective barrier against fluid loss.

Your skin is part of respiration, or breathing, as crazy as that sounds!

Did you know that the second largest fluid loss every day (about 28%) comes from passive loss through the lungs and skin?

This is a normal physiological process, but some environmental factors can exacerbate moisture loss through these organs.

And if we live in a dry climate, at higher altitude, or are around forced air heating all day, the loss is even greater.

Salt scrubs can be a particularly lovely winter ritual or whenever the heating kicks in order to prevent dry, cracking skin and dehydration.

Of course, drinking more water is always helpful, too!

4) It helps you detoxify

From a physiological perspective, the skin is not only our largest organ, but it is also our largest organ of detoxification.

How do we detoxify through the skin? We SWEAT.

Sweating is the safest way to detoxify, as it allows our metabolic and environmental waste products to avoid traveling through the liver and kidneys.

The more resources we give our skin, the better it can do its job. This includes keeping it hydrated and well mineralized so it can function optimally.

And the more chemical free you keep your skin products, the greater the detoxification power of the skin.

Instead of having to divide energy and clean up newly added synthetic chemicals, it can focus on getting rid of accumulated junk.

5) It cleans your skin

Cleaning is different from enhancing detoxification the physiological process of detoxification, or removing internal waste products.

Here I’m just talking about loosening and removing impurities from the surface of the skin.

The oil, while it hydrates, also helps to loosen and remove gunk that’s built up. Like soap, but better in that it doesn’t strip your skin of its natural protective oils.

Hold on a minute. Are you saying that I should wash my skin with oil?

Yes.

Oil cleansing has become an increasingly popular way to wash your face and body recently, though it’s been a technique used for hundreds or thousands of years in Greece, Egypt, and throughout Asia, to name a few places.

Your skin produces a natural layer of oil (sebum) as a protectant. Soap strips this protective coat, causing the skin to react and overproduce oil. Not exactly what we’re going for for health, balanced skin.

We know that reducing inflammation by eliminating irritating foods is beneficial. And that supplementing with anti-inflammatory oils, like fish oil, is beneficial.

Using high quality oils and salt in your salt scrub can act in a similar way, in that they are anti-inflammatory and nourishing.

This is something that hasn’t been proven yet in research, but it’s a small logical leap to imagine that anti-inflammatory or soothing products on your skin would help good bacteria thrive, just like in your GI.

Ok, so you’re ready to make your very own super fabulous salt scrub.

How do you choose your ingredients?

This recipe includes:

carrier oil (more on that below)

essential oil

salt

In order to make this lovely blend of soothing goodness, you need to select high quality ingredients.

It is CRUCIAL that you use organic products.

Are they more expensive? Yes.

But making your own salt scrub will be way less expensive than buying it from a department store beauty brand.

Even if your calculate the cost of your scrub with organic ingredients and it ends up being the same cost as a store bought product, you’ve still made a higher quality product for the same price.

Your skin absorbs at least 40% of what’s put on it.

This is great news for when you use high quality ingredients; all that good stuff gets into the skin and the rest of the body and is put to good use.

It’s bad news with low quality ingredients. Instead of revitalizing the skin, they layer on more for it to detoxify and breakdown.

You essentially increase the burden on your skin, making it harder for it to recover and thrive.

How do I find the right products?

Great question. Let’s break it down by ingredient for this recipe.

Carrier Oils

A carrier oil is the oil base for your recipe. It can consist of one or several oils, depending on your desired effect.

Let’s dive into how to purchase good oils, then we’ll get into the types of oils you can use.

Quality of Carrier Oils

Especially when we’re talking about oils, quality matters immensely.

Many of the ways oils are processed for beauty products or general cooking are detrimental to the people who buy them. The oils are altered to produce greater shelf life — something that only benefits the company selling the oil, not you, the consumer.

You are looking for organic, raw, cold-pressed, unrefined oils, or as close as you can get.

Organic = no pesticides or GMOs

Cold-pressed = pressed through a machine at no more than 120° Fahrenheit

Raw= pressed through a machine at no more than 110° Fahrenheit

Temperature is really important. The lower the temp, the less chance of oxidation or decay of the oil. Cold-pressed or raw guarantees fresh, vital oils.

Unrefined = no further processing has been done to the oil to keep it shelf stable. Unrefined nets you the highest vitamins, minerals, and beneficial fatty acids.

And when applicable, extra virgin. This is usually only found on olive oils and coconut oil. Extra virgin means it is the first press of the product, so the highest nutrient density.

The higher the quality oil, the more effective your product will be!

You want to avoid: expeller-pressed, solvent-extracted, or refined oils. For a more in-depth description of each of these terms as well as specific information on some of the many types of carrier oils, check out this article.

Types of Carrier Oils

There are so many oils to choose from! Where do you start?

Let’s look at your skin type and see what might be the best fit for you:

For dry skin:

Dry and mature skin will benefit from conditioning oils. These tend to be a little heavier, and very nourishing and hydrating.

Examples:

olive oil

hemp

avocado

almond*

*if you are allergic to nuts, do not use almond oil

For oily skin:

Oily skin benefits most from astringent oils. These oils are lighter, and tend to temporarily shrink pores and tonify loose skin.

Examples:

hazelnut*

castor

borage

grapeseed

apricot

sunflower

*if you are allergic to nuts, do not use hazelnut oil

**Please note that if you have acne, you do not automatically have oily skin. And the amount of oil your skin produces depends on environment, diet, and lifestyle.

For mixed skin:

Mixed skin types can benefit from a mixed blend of oils! Generally, I’d use a conditioning oil and a mild astringent oil (avoid castor oil for facial use as it tends to be very astringent). There are some oils that are considered good for any skin type.

Fortifying

Clarifying/purifying

Uplifting/revitalizing

Where to buy

All their products are organic and extremely high quality, and the company is devoted to sustainable harvest and educating their consumers.

They carry a wide variety, including rarer or harder to find oils. They have a wonderful amount of reference material on their site as well!

Mountain Rose Herbs is again a great source, and they even have a list of oils that combine well together. Just look for the organic ones!

Salt

Salt! My favorite part of a salt scrub!

I could talk to you all day about the healing benefits of high mineral salt!

I’ll try to condense my enthusiasm down into a manageable chunk for you.

Salt is incredibly healing and nourishing. It’s antiseptic, and when it’s unrefined, it’s bursting with minerals that we really need to function well.

Quality of Salt

There’s really only one type of salt that’s not great for you, and that’s the refined stuff. Unfortunately, refined salt is the majority of salt on the market in grocery stores.

I’m talking about Morton’s salt. That cute little girl with the umbrella? Yeah, not so cute.

Morton’s, or other refined salt, has been completely stripped of it’s minerals down to sodium and chloride. Then iodine gets added back in, as well as some nasty anti-caking agents.

This is the stuff that will raise your blood pressure and cause water retention.

When we use high mineral salt — salt that’s been mined and crushed, no refining — we don’t see these effects.

High mineral salts feed the body trace nutrients we need that are hard to find elsewhere. We all tend to be mineral deficient, and adding high mineral salt back into your life is my #1 way to start addressing this deficit.

Organic or non-organic salt?

Salt is not often labeled as organic.

Salt is not grown like crops; it’s harvested from the sea or mountains.

That being said, I prefer not to use sea salt in my scrubs or cooking or anywhere, really.

Maybe a few coarse grains sprinkled on top of a meal for a little extra punch.

Sea salt is generally a fairly refined salt (not always, especially if you get them here but many have been refined a bit).

Refined = minerals stripped.

And it is the most likely to have impurities, as we know our oceans and seas are more polluted than ever before.

Note: you might want a more durable container than glass, as you’ll most likely be using the salt scrub in the shower. Or, if you have children who will be using it.

I like the glass, but it can be slippery. Especially with water and oil involved, so make sure you set it in a stable place.

Ingredients:

3c.* carrier oil(s) of your choice

2c. finely ground salt of your choice

25 drops or 1/4tsp. essential oil(s) of your choice

*Note: I prefer this ratio of salt to oil. Experiment! Try 2 cups of oil or 4 cups of oil. Find the salt to oil ratio you like the best!

Instructions:

Pour carrier oil, salt, and essential oil into the large 4c. measuring cup.

Whisk together until essential oil is evenly distributed.

Pour salt scrub into container(s), trying to get an even distribution of salt and oil into each container.

Label the containers with the name of your product and the date.

Storage:

Place in a cool, dry, dark place until you are ready to use your scrub. You want to keep the oils stable for as long as possible.

The salt scrub should keep for a year or more. You can open it to smell it and make sure the oils are still fresh.

How to use your salt scrub

You’ve made the scrub, hooray! Wasn’t that easy?

It’s just as easy to use!

Instructions:

Dampen your entire body. This is most easily done in the shower. If you have longer hair, you will want to tie it up so it doesn’t get coated in oil.

Pour some of the salt scrub into your hands or onto a loofah mitt and begin at your feet, working upward in circular motions.

You want to use gentle pressure to lightly exfoliate your skin, but a more rapid circular motion to stimulate the circulatory system.

Avoid any scratches or wounds.

When you’ve massaged your whole body, rinse with warm water and dry off with a towel.

Salt scrubs can be done about once a week.

Dr. Liz Tip #1

Place an old towel in your shower when you’re using the salt scrub. This way, much of the oil you rinse off will collect on the towel, rather than the floor of your bathtub, which makes it very easy to slip.